MILWAUKEE -- Gov. Tony Evers vowed Thursday to “fight like hell” for his plan to expand Medicaid in the next state budget, in spite of Republican lawmakers’ newly announced plans to jettison the measure.

Evers said Medicaid expansion is broadly popular, including among many Republicans, and would infuse more than $1.6 billion into the state’s healthcare system.

Of the approximately 82,000 Wisconsinites who would be newly eligible for the federal-state health coverage program, Vos said about half already have coverage through the exchanges created by former President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law.

The other half are not covered but are eligible for low-cost coverage through the exchanges, said Vos, R-Rochester.

“None of us ran on an expansion of welfare,” Vos said at a separate press conference at General Mitchell Airport.

Evers was joined at his press conference by Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Democratic lawmakers and other Medicaid expansion advocates.

Barnes says rejecting Medicaid expansion is a “moral failure” on the part of GOP lawmakers. He said it’s ironic that Republican lawmakers announced their plan to scrap Medicaid expansion at the same time they were holding an “elite” $1,000-a-plate fundraiser in Washington, D.C.

Vos acknowledged attending the fundraiser and said it was part of a larger visit by GOP state legislators with the state’s congressional delegation.

Another recent study by UW-Madison economists found that expansion would increase private insurance consumer costs by far less -- and that the increase would be vastly outweighed by a reduction in the cost to providers of uncompensated care. Another study by the Obama administration in 2016 found Obamacare exchange premiums are about 7% lower in expansion states than in non-expansion states.

Republicans on the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee also revealed Wednesday that they will strip other high-profile measures out of Evers’ budget. They include his proposed legalization of medical marijuana and de-penalization of possessing marijuana in small amounts.

Vos said marijuana laws won’t be overhauled in the budget and that he opposes Evers’ marijuana-possession de-penalization plan. But Vos said he’s open to working with Evers on a standalone medical marijuana bill after the next budget is enacted.

“I do think there is a way for us to do a limited form for people who deal with chronic medical conditions,” Vos said.